Grew her 2019 from seed. She flowered a little late so I took her to my office, where I have a perfect nice south facing office. She produced a ton of peppers. Then I “killed” her (cut her of way down, leaving her no leaves at all) and left her. 2 weeks later she came back. So I started giving her water and nutrients. She grew back and gave (less) peppers in 2020. As I have been on and off in the office (guess we all know why) she wasn’t treated as she deserved. At the end of the year, I “killed” her again. She came back again. So I gave her water. I gave her way too little nutrients (I hardly ever was at the office, she was mostly watered by a colleague), I never repotted her. I feel like a monster. She didn’t produce peppers. Then suddenly in the fall of 2023 she produced 3 proud little peppers. So, I finally decided to take her back home and just repotted her in a nice, bigger pot and gave her the nutrients and fresh dirt (after 5 years…) she desperatly needed. I am somewhat exited what she will do this year.
You’ve discovered that peppers are actually perennials, we just treat them like annuals in the US because they die in cold weather. We have wild chiltepin aka birds eye peppers (50K scoville) growing in our yard in Texas and they’re particularly frost tolerant, moreso than domesticated varieties, but similarly they die back every year and I chop them low to the ground. They grow back bigger the next year and put off hundreds of peppers every summer. Take care of it and that tabasco will do great!!
Yeah, and also how hardy they are. She was in the same 3 liter pot with almost no nutrients, the same dirt and been treated like shit for most of these 5 years. I “cut” her main stem off with a dull paper scissor…
I have a fish pepper plant I’ve been abusing for a few years similarly.
It just won’t die.
It looks like shit but every growing season it perks up and throws leaves and hides its ugly deformed body.
I’m going to check out that chilltepin birds eye. Our chillies usually don’t survive winter, so I would love to have some plants that do. And I like birds eye a lot, so I see this as an absolute win either way.